Alcohol use and crime: findings from a longitudinal sample of U.S. adolescents and young adults

Background: A positive relationship between alcohol use and criminal activity has been well documented among adults, but fewer studies explore this relationship among adolescents. Methods: Using data from 4 waves of the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health (Add Health), we examine alcohol use patterns and criminal activity from adolescence to young adulthood. Fixed‐effects models partially address the potential endogeneity of alcohol use, and, because numerous studies indicate that males are more likely than females to engage in drinking and criminal activity, the analyses are segmented by gender. Results: We find a strong positive relationship between alcohol consumption, the commission of crimes, and criminal victimization for both genders. Various sensitivity analyses and robustness checks support this core finding. Conclusions: Our results have important policy implications, as public policy tools that aim to reduce drinking among adolescents could also reduce criminal activity. Moreover, effective alcohol abuse treatment may indirectly reduce delinquency and thus have greater long‐term economic benefits than previously estimated.     

Specific diffusing capacity (DL/VA) as a measure of the lung’s diffusing characteristics: Prediction formulas for young adults

Specific diffusing capacity (D_L/V_A) data were calculated from measurements previously analyzed for different functions. The measurements had been made on healthy community dwelling subjects between the ages of 15 and 35. The linear regressions on age and height for both D_L and D_L/V_A were calculated from the same measurements on the same subjects. D_L/V_A decreased as height increased in all sex, age, and smoking subgroups studied although the negative coefficient for height achieved statistical significance only in some groups. In both male and female subjects an increase in age or smoking decreased D_L/V_A significantly but did not affect D_L. This suggests that the specific diffusing capacity (D_L/V_A) will be a more useful parameter than D_L in epidemiological studies to detect environmental effects, for example, those of pollution, and that a height term should be incorporated into prediction formulas for clinical use. We suggest the use of the regression equations we obtained for young adult nonsmokers as prediction formulas. These are, for men aged 17–35 years: D_L/V_A=9.60−0.074A−0.011H; and for women aged 15–35 years: D_L/V_A=12.97−0.063A−0.037H, where A = age in years and H = height in cm.